McCain: Rice 'not qualified' for State

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice is “not qualified” to become secretary of state and he called her claim that the deadly attack on the diplomatic facility in Benghazi was a spontaneous demonstration “not very bright.”

“She’s not qualified,” McCain said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “Anyone who goes on national television and in defiance of the facts, five days later — We’re all responsible for what we say and what we do. I’m responsible to my voters. She’s responsible to the Senate of the United States. We have our responsibility for advice and consent.”

Sen. John Kerry is quickly emerging as the favorite of most senators to replace Hillary Clinton at State. Beyond their closer relationship with the Massachusetts lawmaker and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, many GOP senators remain angry about Rice claiming, in the days after the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, that the assault grew out of a spontaneous demonstration sparked by an anti-Islam film.

“Because it was four dead Americans,” McCain said. “She told the American people on every major newscast in America. If a select committee, if appointed, clears her of any wrongdoing — besides not being very bright, because it was obvious this was not a, quote ‘flash mob.’ There was no demonstration.”

McCain was even more blunt on “Fox And Friends.”

“I will do everything in my power to block her from being the United States Secretary of State,” he said. “She has proven that she either doesn’t understand or she is not willing to accept evidence on its face.”

More surprisingly, McCain wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of Kerry being named Secretary of Defense. McCain and Kerry, both Vietnam War veterans, have long been considered friends.

“I think we’d have to find out what — we’d have to look into it before I would want to do that,” he said on Fox. “I haven’t even heard the rumors that you just described. But all of us are responsible for the things we’ve said and done if we’re going to serve the American people. But I’d like to hold off and see what the story is before saying that, because I do give the president some latitude of naming his team.”